NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1041, 2 February 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

An argument which . the Prime Minister is using pretty frequently in his speeches is, that if. he checked the present rate of borrowing, the bottom would fall out of the country. At Stratford he said on this point that "if New Zealand did not continue to follow its present policy it would be left in tho race. It would lose' the most valuable members of its population, as it did in the early ciglitics." At Deyonport he said tho loss of population would run into "tens of thousands." It must be apparent to every sensible person that there-must bo something wrong with a country that would crash into ruin if it attempted to support itself; or something verywrong with a Government that acts in that belief. We know it is useless to expect ■ the Government to agree with our opinion, and we shall therefore quote an- authoritative view for honest Liberals to cut out and refer to whenever they hear.Sir'Joseph seeking to. make their flesh creep, with such statements as we have quoted. Hero it is:

The returns of the census took us all by surprise. No one imagined the loss had been so great, or that the exodus had mado so huge an iyirqad ,qn ,tbo fjew Zealand-ÜbA"population 1 . , 'It'is not'satisfactory merely to repeat the cry that the cessation of public works has been the cause of the exhausting. emigration which has bron going on. ." . . I have, referred to the .cassation of public works as one of the assigned causes of the exodus. Does it not show that the method of carrying' on public works has been radically vicious, when they no sooner cease than those enganod on them are compelled to emigrate?

These arc the words of John Ballaxcb in his Budget of 1891. They arc-worth remembering.- •■'

The growth of tho indebtedness of municipalities and other local authorities is.a matter that has not yefc received, the attention which it merits. Extravagance is a natural accompaniment of that tendency towards extension of the functions of governing bodies which is manifest in local as well as national affairs. A report of tho Local Government Board summarised in the London papers to hand this week shows that during the year ended March 31, 101Q, no fewer .than £1,228,239 was borrowed by county councils with tho sanction of the board for purposes other than education. Of ; this total. £802,957 was required for purposes of small holdings, £197,609 for lunatic asylums, £131,524 for the provision and improvement of police stations, offices, and, other county buildings, £64,380 for roads and bridges, £17,796 for isolation hospitals, and £0607 for open spaces. The amount was £572,061 in excess of the sum sanctioned in the previous year, and no fewer than £914,022 in excess of the total for 1907-8. The large increases in those two. years were duo almost entirely to the sums required .for the purposes of small holdings. A sum of £258,961 wa3 borrowed under this head in .1908-9; the amount in 1909-10 was £802,967. The Times draws from the report, an interesting comparison between the growth of ths national debt and the local debt respectively:

U the end of IS7D-SO, the national debt amounted to £770,001,774 and the local debt to ,£135,931,070. At the end of 1907-S tho national debt amounted to £7(>2,32f>,051 and the local debt to .iCSO3,GIo,IHG. In other words, in tho 28 years before 1907-8, the national debt has decreased by ,£8,278,723 and the local debt has increased by .6366,711,546.

The increase of the local debt at Home is regarded with some uneasiness, but tho position in this country, where the local debt and the national debt aro both increasing rapidly calls still more urgently for sober consideration.

Discussikg the. Prime Minister's Stratford speech last .week the Christchurch organ of tho Ministry said that Sin Josdph Ward ."quoted Home newspapers that had congratulated the Dominion upon its financial stability and upon its good fortune in obtaining the money it required.at a rate which other borrowers might envy. But our readers can see all this for themselves in the summary of his speech which we publish this morning." Since no Homo newspaper "congratulated tho country upon its good fortune in obtaining the money it required at a rate which other borrowers might envy," and since even Sm Joseph did not go the length of that gross mis-statement, - ve offered tlie Christchurch paper an opportunity to clear itself of the charge of having deliberately invented what it imputed to "Homo newspapers." It has issued a reply. Unable to make good its words, it now says that the London newspapers "have not. suggested f.liat. the . . . taxpayer, taking all the circumstances into account, has any reason to ho dissatisfied with the result of the election." This is delightful. The London

newspapers merely called the loan a "fiasco," and dwelt upon the steep price Now Zealand was paying for it. But it did not say expressly that tho taxpayer, taking all the circumstances into account, should bo dissatisfied, just as when you say a man has been run over by a railway train, it .is unnecessary to add that ha was hurt. Therefore, argues our ingenious friend, the London newspapers congraiiilated the taxpayer on his good fortune! But we suppose our contemporary has to go on doing these things. We shall shortly know what the House of Lords will do with the Parliament Bill, and the ending of the present suspense will be welcomed. The papers to hand by last night's mail, which left just after the elections had been completed, present the situation on December 24 as just a welter of uncertainties, nor have the latest calfle messages helped to an ending of the doubt. If tho Bill is rejected, the Government will either have to arrange another Conference, introduce a new Bill, or advise the creation of 500 PuppetPeers. This last measure will by no means end the. trouble of the Radicals, as the Observer, of December 18 shows in a. very shrewd analysis of the subsequent position:

"With this creation of tho 500 Peers Ministers would have shot their bolt. It would make their own party uncomfortable, and would be profoundly unpopular tho moment it was done. The Socialists would hare it. The Irish party would have bitter reason to repent it, for when the details of Home Rule came to be considered in such a Second Chamber, packed with new Peers who would vrry soon cease, to be pupp-sts, the Redmondites would find that they had knotted a scourge for their own backs.

"The country would be delivered from make-bslieve and falsehood. It would be, brought face to face with realities. When the royal prerogative had b:en actually seized, and employed in. this manner by means of the over-represented vote, the country would know and feel, as nothing else could force it to know and feel, what R-sdmonditc rule really means. The tiling would J)ito deep into the. flesh, and we wjre never more, confid-ent 'of anything than that tho reaction against the/Coalition from that moment would never ceass to gather strength"

Above all, the Observer adds, the Unionist party in Parliament will be kept together and kept in good heart. The great fact is that naif tho.nation is still solidly opposed to Radicalism, and will remain so.